Media Release: Homeopathy Week a Skeptical Success
April 22, 2010
MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Homeopathy Week a Skeptical Success
Toronto, Ont. (April 22, 2010) — World Homeopathy Awareness Week (WHAW), a week of celebration for the homeopathic community, was successfully hijacked by the skeptical community and critical appraisals of homeopathy dominated the Internet.
Lauren O’Driscoll of the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS) wrote “the campaign for homeopathy as a treatment for mental health concerns by WHAW is problematic in that it targets vulnerable populations with pseudo-scientific and invalidated claims.”
Skeptic North, the Canadian blog collective, published an entire week of articles on homeopathy and CASS was featured in a radio interview on CHQR.
Kimberly Hébert, at www.skepticnorth.com , detailed such absurd homeopathic remedies as “dog feces 6C-30C” and “Black Hole 6C-50M.” The quintessential example of homeopathic remedies, which are often diluted in water, is the Helios preparation “Aqua Pura Bottled Water 3X-1M” which starts with bottled water, and then dilutes it up to 1000 times – with water.
The WHAW has come and gone this year, but alternative medicine continues to grow. Homeopathy remains one of its more arcane and outdated therapeutics. When people leave modern medicine behind, they make themselves vulnerable by delaying definitive care.
Homeopathy is part of a larger scope of practice used by Naturopaths, a profession that embraces a similar theory of “vitalism” based upon an incorporeal spirit. The Canadian Association of Homeopathic Doctors will be celebrating Naturopathic Medicine Week from May 3 rd to 9 th , and CASS will be ready to confront more bad science.
CASS critically engages with scientific, technological and medical claims made in public discourse, addressing factual inaccuracies and misinformation by promoting evidence-based science. CFI - which runs CASS - is a registered educational charity promoting reason, science, secularism and free inquiry.
Contact:
Michael Kruse, Spokesperson
Centre for Inquiry's Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism
(416) 737-4960
Mkruse50@gmail.com